Judge finds heart, not a jury

Friday

Jul 14, 2006 at 12:01 AM

Don't blame the news media. The collapse - amid cheers from prospective jurors - of a four-day effort to pick a jury in Lake County for the kidnapping, rape and murder trial John Evander Couey is not our fault.

Joe Byrnes

Don't blame the news media.
The collapse - amid cheers from prospective jurors - of a four-day effort to pick a jury in Lake County for the kidnapping, rape and murder trial John Evander Couey is not our fault.
If you have to blame someone, make it Judge Richard Howard for thinking that, in four or five days, he could seat an impartial jury - a panel ignorant of Couey's confession and able to set aside prior opinions of him - so close to Homosassa, where 9-year-old Jessica Lunsford lived and was killed.
But instead of placing blame, I think we should be giving credit, and that goes to the people of Lake County, who followed Jessica's story.
It goes to the potential jurors who wept from the witness stand at the very mention of her name.
"It's not so much that I have an avid interest in it," one prospective juror testified. "It's just that it's sad."
Other jurors were grimly set in their views of Couey. They had put themselves in the shoes of Jessica's family.
"I can honestly say that, having two granddaughters the same age as the little girl involved," one man testified, "I'd be very hard to sway."
The people of Lake County have proven in a court of law that they have a heart - that they care deeply, as do the people of Citrus and Marion, when they know that a child suffers.
That is as it should be in any community.
The news media has a share of the credit - or blame, if you insist - for bringing that community together.
Some prospective jurors testified smugly that they don't listen to the news or read the papers. Nonetheless, even many of the intentionally clueless - who prided themselves on being uninformed - had heard of Jessica's tragic story from friends, relatives or co-workers.
This compassion for our children, and watching out for them, isn't just a matter of words.
If that were enough, Couey could be our model. Consider these excerpts from his statements to police:
"I'm a very good Christian and believe in God."
"I care for people, I really do. I've got a big heart."
"I'm willing to pay for my consequences for what I did."
No, words aren't enough. It's all about what we do.
And in this respect, Jessica herself - through the efforts of her father - has done a great deal to protect other children in Florida and around the country.
This state's Jessica Lunsford Act lengthens prison terms for child molesters, enhances self-reporting rules, requires background checks for contract workers at schools, makes it a crime to hide sex offenders from the law and, in many other ways, helps safeguard our kids.
Mark Lunsford is pushing the law in other states and urging more efforts to catch absconded sex offenders.
"I truly think it's time for us to turn the tables, and instead of them stalking our kids we're going to be stalking them," Lunsford told me on a recent Saturday at his parents' house in Homosassa.
He wants families to be educated about child abuse.
"And I think we should all take a good, hard look at our neighbors and make sure we know them."
His mother sees the media attention as an important part of his effort.
"We need the media," Ruth Lunsford said. "You need to keep this alive because of the children of today and the children of tomorrow."
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Joe Byrnes may be reached at joe@ocala.com or (352) 867-4112.